Rainelle — Along with a half-dozen enthusiastic local volunteers, a troop of Pennsylvania Boy Scouts tackled tasks from tombstone cleaning to fence building at the Rainelle Cemetery, as part of the National Scout Jamboree now under way at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in Fayette County.

If you died in the Grand Canyon during the 19th century, chances are you were buried where you fell. But in the early 1900s, pioneers found a clearing about a quarter mile from the south rim amidst the ponderosa pine.

The funeral services industry in the United States -- funeral homes, crematoriums and cemeteries -- generates about $15 billion in annual revenues, according to the 2012 "Funeral Services" report from Research and Markets.

Over the years, many vehicles have been turned into hearses and put to solemn work. Usually we think of stately luxury brands that are given the duty of conveying the dead to their final destinations; however in the UK one funeral home has turned the zero-emissions Nissan Leaf into a hearse.

As the National Museum of Funeral History shows us, funerals have evolved over time to reflect the current zeitgeist. Planning a funeral today involves a lot of the same customs that have been around since ancient times, but new trends and technology have made funeral planning much more sophisticated than ever before.